Former New York City Mayor and U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday he doesn’t think there is any way Hillary Clinton should be able to avoid facing an indictment for the “secretive and highly classified”government information found on the private email server she used while secretary of state.
“[There are] 13 violations of federal law that she arguably committed,” Giuliani toldFox News’ “Fox & Friends” program. “This is about as clear as it gets. It is a crime to negligently handle top secret material.”

Giuliani said in his days in the government, there were times he’d be at work until 2 a.m. because he never took top secret materials out of his office.

“Now, how can she put all this out there and not get proceeded against by the government,” said Giuliani, noting that there is currently a push to demote former Gen. David Petraeus’rank over his sharing of secret information with his biographer and mistress.
“They treated it — in the case of Petraeus — as a major crime, and his actions are a hundredth of hers,” said Giuliani. “She misrepresented about it. She’s lied about it. She said she had no top secret material. It’s absurd.”

And as Clinton “destroyed 34,000 emails,” Giuliani said that he would have argued, as a prosecutor, “that’s evidence of a guilty knowledge . . . the destruction is evidence of guilty knowledge, evidentiary principle that you can use against someone when they’re in a situation where who knows what’s on those 34,000 e-mails.”

Further, he denied that the probe is politically motivated, as it is the FBI, part of the Obama administration, that is doing the investigation.
In addition, Giuliani pointed out, the FBI has opened a second investigation into the Clinton Foundation, which he would find “really worrying” if he were her attorney.
Giuliani also commented on the news that Sarah Palin had decided to back Donald Trump’s bid for the GOP nomination, saying it “hurts a lot” that she chose him over rival Ted Cruz, after supporting his winning Senate bid.

It is possible to identify how far down the mountain American politics has fallen in one word—Benghazi.

Benghazi is no longer the place in Libya where U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed by Islamist militias. “Benghazi” is now just another neutralized buzzword in the bad-mouthing wars of American politics. As a professional cynic aptly noted to Congress, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Forget Benghazi. It’s time to move on to more important matters.

Such as what?

The movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” opened last week, and the cold-water machines have been hosing it. No one cares about Benghazi anymore, the conventional sniffing goes, because the box-office is tepid. At 144 minutes, “13 Hours” is too long and, really, it’s just too political.

I sat through it, and these political faces and names appear nowhere in the movie: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice. But for the last 75 minutes, I could think of only one thing: the Obama administration’s YouTube coverup, the story—or “talking points”—about how an obscure anti-Islamic video made in California caused Benghazi to happen.

“13 Hours” is a graphic, reasonably accurate depiction of the events on Sept. 11, 2012: the consular assault, Chris Stevens’s death, an escape under heavy fire to the CIA annex a mile away, and the successful, nightlong defense of the annex. With apologies to the politically delicate, “13 Hours” makes the memory of the government’s tall tale, which it insisted on repeating for more than a week, hard to stomach.

And one other, impossible-to-flinch conclusion: There ought to be a political reckoning over this with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, her emails revealed, was complicit in a White House concoction she knew the night of the attack was untrue. She is now asking the American people to let her succeed Mr. Obama into the White House. Benghazi is toward the top of the list of reasons they should say “no.” From the looks of it, many are doing so already.

The CIA military contractors who fought there and survived have said the story is not about politics but about valor and courage. It is that. The director of “13 Hours,” Michael Bay, told Bill O’Reilly this week it is wrong to call his film political. It is indeed mainly the account of a hard running battle with heavily armed jihadists.

But the only reason there is political controversy about Benghazi is that the Obama administration persisted in the false story that a YouTube video caused a spontaneous assault on the consulate. In fact, President Obama built hisSept. 25speech to the U.N. around Chris Stevens’s death, citing the video six times.

Had the administration told the truth, Benghazi would have been a legitimate, if difficult, dispute over the nature of the terrorist threat and consular security in northeastern Libya. But with the 2012 presidential vote less than two months away, the White House tried to displace reality with the preposterous YouTube story.

Political? What those six CIA contractors and several State Department security officers did by stopping a probable bloodbath of American deaths or a hostage crisis in Benghazi was save Barack Obama’s presidency.

Two months after the election, this is what Sec. Clinton told Sen. Ron Johnson at a congressional hearing: “The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”

It was neither of those random thoughts. The plainest account of what did happen that night may be read in the Nov. 1, 2013, indictment by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, commander of “an Islamist extremist militia.” In June 2014, U.S. Special Forces captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah, and he now awaits trial in the District of Columbia.

The indictment states that the purpose of the conspiracy led by Ahmed Abu Khatallah was to violently attack the mission and annex, to kill U.S. citizens there, to destroy buildings and to plunder property and sensitive information from the buildings.

The indictment says that at about11:15 p.m.on Sept. 11, Khatallah and the militia forces “launched a violent attack on the Mission using firearms, to include handguns, semiautomatic rifles, that is, AK-47-type rifles, and destructive devices, that is, grenades and rocket-propelled grenades.”

At12:30 a.m., they carried out the same armed assault against the CIA annex a mile away. At5:15 a.m., a mortar attack killed Tyrone Woods, the team leader, and Glen Doherty, who had flown from Tripoli with a small but successful rescue group.

Political? A Clinton campaign ad in Iowa says, “She’s got what it takes to do the toughest job in the world.”

“A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter.

After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house where Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.

When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said.

Pomboy to Barron’s: Buy Gold, Oil as Stocks Overvalued

By F McGuire |

Economic forecaster Stephanie Pomboy contends that the U.S. stock market remains overvalued despite the recent selloff and will continue to plunge even lower.
She maintains her long-held view that gold is one of the safest places to be, and that now is the time to invest in the tumbling oil market.
But just how much more will stocks fall?
“Well that’s a tricky question because you don’t know what rabbit [the Federal Reserve] is going to try and pull out of its hat,” Pomboy, the founder and president of MacroMavens, recently told Barron’s. Global equities’ worst-ever start to a year deepened as oil continued its collapse and a slowdown in China weighs on sentiment. About $2.2 trillion has been wiped off the value of U.S. stocks this year through Wednesday, with the S&P 500 down 8 percent, Bloombergreported.
“But I do think the stock market has further to fall. If you look at the [total market value] of the stock market to GDP, as well as other measures, we’re still at ridiculous extremes. Stocks have much further to go to be anywhere near normal, much less cheap,” she said.
The S&P 500 closed Wednesday at its lowest since October 2014 after touching its weakest level in almost two years, Reutersreported.
However, some financial experts expect the index to fall even further before the downward trend can reverse. The S&P 500 ended just below 1,860, down 9 percent for the year and 12.7 percent from its record high. To confirm that it is a bona-fide bear market, it would have to fall 8.3 percent further to near 1,704.
Pomboy has been very bearish on the U.S. economy and markets since at least 2010. “I maintained throughout that quantitative easing, which was all that was left after the fiscal stimulus was exhausted, would fail to benefit the economy,” said Pomboy, 47, whose institutional-investor clients include BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and hedge fund Passport Capital.
“But as little love as I had for stocks way back in 2010, I got much more bearish when profit growth started to crumble at the same time the Fed began the Taper in 2014. With the era of the [Federal Reserve keeping rates at zero and buying bonds] now over, there’s absolutely no support left for stocks,” she said.

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She does like gold and U.S. Treasury bonds, however.
“I view gold as becoming a currency rather than a commodity. And the dollar is being debased,” she said. “The dollar is wildly over-owned. I think there is zero chance that the Fed continues to raise rates this year and as those expectations come out of the market, that will work to the detriment of the dollar and to the benefit of gold,” she said.
She is bullish on Japan and owns shares of the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity fund (DXJ). She also has been bullish on Russia and owns shares of Market Vectors Russia exchange-traded fund (RSX).
Her only U.S. equity position is through gold mining stocks and gold. She touts SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) among her gold investments. She also owns shares of Bond ETF (TLT).
As for how the current market volatility will influence this year’s presidential election, Sen. John McCain said that the ongoing plunge in U.S. stock markets would hurt the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House in November, just as a market crash did his 2008 bid for the presidency, The Wall Street Journalreported.
“In our daily tracking, we went from three points up to five points down in 24 hours,” the Arizona Republican said of his standing in the polls when markets went into a free-fall in 2008. In September 2008, McCain suspended his campaign against then-Sen. Barack Obama, saying he needed to get back to Washington to work on a bailout package.
“McCain said that he bore the brunt of public outrage because voters blamed Republicans, since a Republican, George W. Bush, then occupied the Oval Office, But he said that now it is Democrats who are likely to suffer, since Mr. Obama now occupies the White House and is a Democrat,” WSJ reported.
“We have a Democrat president,” McCain told WSJ. “People hold presidents responsible.”
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
Read more: Stephanie Pomboy to Barron’s: Buy Gold as Stocks Continue to Plunge
Important: Can you afford to Retire?

Florida Latinos Say Trump Hurts the GOP Brand By ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES

Charles Santos-Buch

Florida Latinos Say Trump Hurts the GOP Brand

Older Cuban-Americans in the state offer support to the presidential candidate; others see him as divisive

ENLARGE

Demonstrators at Donald Trump’s first Florida campaign event in October at his Doral Golf Resort near Miami. Unlike these protesters, older Cuban-Americans tend to like the Republican candidate.PHOTO: PEDRO PORTAL/EL NUEVO HERALD/ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI— Dennis Freytes, an Army veteran and Puerto Rican activist in Orlando, has voted for every Republican presidential candidate going back to Ronald Reagan in 1980. That streak may end if Donald Trump secures the GOP nomination—an outcome he said could prompt him to bolt the party and become an independent.

Mr. Trump “is a divisive figure,” said Mr. Freytes, a supporter of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He said he has been repelled by many of the businessman’s comments about immigrants and Hispanics, such as calling Mexicans criminals and rapists. “That guy will be the ruin of the Republican Party,” he said.

Recent polls show that Mr. Trump is far ahead of his GOP rivals in Florida. Older Cuban-Americans who came to the U.S. soon after the Cuban Revolution appear especially open to his message, according to some Miami Republicans.

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“He has a rough way of saying things, but it comes from the heart,” said Julio Martinez,who came from Cuba in the 1950s and was mayor of Hialeah, a city west of Miami with a large number of Cuban-American voters. “He’s here to protect the U.S., which is in danger right now.” Mr. Martinez said he is working to turn out the vote for Mr. Trump in the area and recently signed up scores of Hispanic volunteers at a gun show where the campaign set up a table.

Florida’sMarch 15 primary will present the first big test of what effect, if any, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has had on GOP efforts to court all Latino voters, who made up 14% of the state’s GOP primary electorate in 2012. Though Nevada also has a sizable Hispanic population, that state’s Feb. 23 contest involves caucuses with typically low turnout.

Latinos are projected to make up 11.9% of eligible U.S. voters in this year’s presidential election and could sway outcomes in key swing states like Colorado and Nevada, according to a Pew Research Center study releasedTuesday.

Interviews with Florida Hispanic Republicans suggest that while Mr. Trump benefits from pockets of support, many regard him with unease, or even hostility. Some said they worry he was pushing other GOP candidates such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to adopt harsh rhetoric and more-extreme positions on immigration and other issues.

“Everyone is fed up with politicians, and I can see how he appeals to that audience,” said Nicole Gomez, the 31-year-old president of the North Dade Republican Club in Miami. But “he really exploits that visceral anger” and “his whole demeanor is very repulsive.”

Mr. Trump has repeatedly dismissed concerns about his standing with Latino voters, saying he has a great relationship with them and believes he will win their support because of his ability to create jobs.

Yet many Republican strategists fear Mr. Trump would perform even worse than Mitt Romney’s poor showing in 2012, when he garnered 27% of the U.S. Hispanic vote.

A postelection analysis by the Republican National Committee in 2013 blamed the result in part on Mr. Romney’s call for “self-deportation” as a solution to illegal immigration, a comment that turned off many Latinos. Mr. Trump’s positions, including calls for deporting 11 million people and building a wall on the Mexican border, have been tougher.

“The Republican brand is hurt,” said Alfonso Aguilar, president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, an advocacy group. Mr. Trump’s “language has been so offensive, the proposals so draconian, that the damage is big.”

A coalition of Hispanic GOP groups, including his, called a news conference last October on the eve of the GOP debate in Boulder, Colo., to rule out support for Mr. Trump. In December, they held a similar event on the eve of the Las Vegas GOP debate to criticize Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for his immigration stances, including opposition to any form of legalization for undocumented immigrants.

A December MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist Poll found that 65% of Latino registered voters viewed Mr. Trump negatively, compared with 21% who saw him positively, by far the poorest showing of any candidate. He fared worse than any other GOP contender against Democrat Hillary Clinton. And 65% of Hispanics said he was hurting the GOP brand.

Many Latino Republicans have expressed misgivings. The GOP has undertaken “all these great attempts to attract the Hispanic community, and he will undo it,” said Anthony Suarez, 62, president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association of Florida in Orlando. He predicted Democrats would seize on Mr. Trump’s language and positions to galvanize the booming Puerto Rican population in central Florida.

Jenny Montes De Oca, a 35-year-old Miami physician born in Venezuela, said this will be her first chance to vote for president after becoming a U.S. citizen in 2012. She registered as a Republican because she identified more with the party’s positions. But if Mr. Trump is the nominee, she said she won’t vote for him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if that happens,” she said.

What’s more, administrators in charge of the massive VA facility in greater Los Angelesmay have been hiding wait times, and may have misled Congress on the delays and exactly how long veterans are being forced to wait for care, according to new information obtained by CNN.

This revelation means that the scandal over delays in care and wait times for veterans, which embroiled theU.S. Department of Veterans Affairslast year and even led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, is apparently not over. And the changes promised by the VA and the Obama administration may not be working.

The detailed new evidence comes from the Los Angeles VA’s own internal documents obtained by CNN, and numerous medical and administrative sources confirmed the information.

It is particularly significant as the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center is the nation’s largest VA health care system, caring for hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans.

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The VA documents show more than 12,700 appointments, which the VA calls consults, had been waiting more than 90 days to be addressed, as of mid-January.

Even new patients seeking care at the Los Angeles VA for the first time can wait months to see a doctor there.

Records show on January 15, more than 1,600 veterans who were new patients were waiting 60 to 90 days for appointments. Another 400 veterans have waited up to six months, and 64 veterans had been waiting six months to a year for their appointments.

The documents provided to CNN show the lengthy wait times are still happening, within the last several months, and sources say the backlog is happening even now.

And yet last month, the VA’s acting director for the Western region overseeing the Los Angeles VA told Congress that veterans who are new patients there only have to wait a few days for appointments.

“The average wait time for a new patient right now is about four days,” Dr. Skye McDougall, the acting director of the Desert Pacific Healthcare Network, Veterans Health Administration, testified before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

But McDougall’s statement is simply not true.

According to the Los Angeles VA’s documents dated January 15, the actual average wait time for new patients at the VA was 48 days. A half-dozen medical and administrative sources inside the LA VA system corroborate these waits.

The wait times since then have not changed significantly — coming down slightly to a wait time of 44 days for new patients as ofMarch 1, according to another VA document — and are still roughly 10 times what McDougall testified they were.

The delays in appointments are even taking place at Los Angeles clinics for mental health, where documents show more than 300 veterans have been waiting more than 30, 60, even 90 days for treatment.

Asked how long the wait time is for mental health at the Los Angeles VA, McDougall testified that the same number — a four days’ wait for new patients — applies for mental health.

But that is also not true, according to the documents and sources inside the VA who spoke with CNN.

A new LA VA chart shows as ofMarch 1, new mental health patients in Los Angeles are waiting an average 36 days just to get an appointment.

Los Angeles VA officials would not talk to CNN about the discrepancies but instead sent a statement saying that the “Greater Los Angeles and VA nationwide continues to work very hard to get Veterans off waiting lists and into clinics to get the care they have earned and deserve.”

The VA sent CNN new “retrospective data” showing primary care average wait times of four days, specialty care wait times of 7.5 days, and mental health wait times of 2.5 days, as of January. The VA explained that the chart for new patients obtained by CNN “does not include same day appointments or in some cases same week appointments for those Veterans who need care quickly….”

New patients, the VA told CNN, “typically account for less than 10% of all Veteran appointments and are not representative of the whole patient population.”

Despite the “retrospective data,” the real truth, say the sources CNN has interviewed, is reflected in the internal LA VA documents obtained by CNN — that wait times for many patients at the Los Angeles VA Medical Centers extends into weeks and months and are a serious problem.

This news of continuing delays in Los Angeles comes a year after reports of cover-ups and turmoil at the VA, which became a national scandal, where wait times, veterans’ deaths and even secret waiting lists were revealed at VA hospitals across the country.

Congress even passed a new law last fall to help veterans get care more quickly, as a direct result of the scandal. And since the scandal, Congress has approved $16 billion extra for the VA in an attempt to hire more doctors and nurses and to build more facilities. The VAremoved its 14-day scheduling goalto discourage engaging in “inappropriate scheduling practices,” and President Barack Obama also appointed a new VA secretary,Robert McDonald, last summer.